Pradeep visits England :o)

Pradeep, who I knew from Nepal, came to London on business, and we spent an evening sightseeing on the London Eye... luckily it was the only day in weeks that wasn't pouring with rain, or blowing gale force winds, so we had some nice views! London at night is pretty... and the planes flying overhead and coming into land at Heathrow reminded me in an odd way that I am living in England and not just flying in for a minibreak...

Houses of Parliament from the eye

The London eye

London sky

Pradeep and I

Ant and I... in the eye (pod? hahaha... oh the wit)

Pradeep, me, Ant and the Nadj in Bumbles restaurant (Victoria)... after the 3 courses for £10 bargain meal deal...

Introducing... Peanut

This is Peanut... our house seems to have adopted him (although I am not sure how long for)... he has been sitting outside for several months to no avail, but now we finally relented and he is being fed, snuggling on beds, and using the cat flap, and generally prancing around like he owns the house... which technically speaking he does as he used to live here, but his real owners moved about a year ago and now cant seem to make him stay at their new house... they have come round to collect him several times on request, but appeared to not be too bothered about it all... which is strange as he is cute and very fluffy!

Peanut tries to find Ted's legs under the duvet

It's been a while

I have not been good at all at doing this since I returned to England... but I thought I might have a go at updating things... got a few things to write about... at the same time I will upload some more arty photos onto FlickR.

I was traumatised by momos just before Christmas. (L-R) Me, Marky Boy, Ed, Nadj, Lizzie, Gaz and Ant met up for a Nepali reunion at the 'Ghurka Chef' a Nepali restaurant in Winch. Ant and I shared Thukpa and Momos... I think in Nepal this costs less than £1... here it was £10 for each. CRAZY. It was very traumatic.
On Christmas Day, the aging pampered Princess HRH Mimi the 1st enjoyed a most glorious cat nip pet toy from pets at home...

After Christmas there was a trip to Kew Gardens where I got overly excited about the temporary Henry Moore exhibition of HUGE sculptures that seemed to frame all sorts of things interestingly... have uploaded more photos onto Flickr...

Spot the orange boy

There were also some plants...

Big Blue Kathmandu has been out and about a bit since his glorious (visa-less) entry into England. Char and I got properly muddy in Winch and then he went on a minibreak to York, where he was able to enjoy the delights of a blue run (easy) at a special mountain biking park. Next time we might try a red run... The photo below shows some of my minions fixing a puncture (2 in one weekend)... I should note however that I can actually fix a puncture myself... however when one has staff why bother...

Ant and I then decided to camp in a tent in the Peak District for New Years. No one I spoke to before about this plan thought it was a good idea... and I don't actually have a photo of the HUGE tent to prove we did it... however here is Ant in his sleeping bag... looking cold. Actually it wasn't really too cold, not freezing temperatures anyway. However it wasn't warm in the tent, well it was... but only after I was wearing about 5 layers of clothing and was in my uber thick down sleeping bag... but we is hard core init. We even made our own food. Below is a variation on Chris Cowan's bean stew... Temperatures inside the tent were not particularly conducive to staying awake until mid-night to celebrate new years... so we opened our mini bottle of carva at about 7pm... how exciting. The walk up Kinder Scout on New Years eve was worth it... despite some navigation issues (even with a GPS)... I took loads of bleak winter leafless tree photos (see flickr) and generally enjoyed being outside up a hill...

Path along the top of Kinder Scout

Short diversion through boggy chasm

Encounter with sheep - Upper Booth